There are 5 basic steps your skin needs to exist in a balanced, healthy state, to maintain skin health longer, help control the way your cells are aging, and contribute to how your skin looks & feels on a daily basis. We consider these steps to be the “essentials”, not to be confused with the advanced skincare steps, which we’ll get into later.

Cleansing is one of, if not the most important step in your skin care routine. It’s the 1st essential step & most obvious step if you had the ideal “First Aid” skincare kit. Think of cleansing as a ritual. Theres a right way to cleanse, and a wrong way to cleanse. Cleansing takes time. You should spend at least 3 minutes, washing your face, both am & pm. Imagine wearing the same clothes, day in and day out, actively sweating, collecting dirt, dead cells & germs, never stopping to put on a fresh set of clean clothes. Would you start to smell? Yes. Would you most likely develop bacterial issues due to lack of personal hygiene? Of course.

You have to wash your face if you want your skin cells to actively breathe. We forget our skin is the largest organ. Living & breathing. If you don’t keep it clean, it’s not operating at it’s optimal health. Often times I hear, “I don’t wash my face because my skin is sensitive”. Or, “When I use product/s, my skin gets irritated”. Doing nothing is the best way to neglect your skin. If it’s irritated from product, it’s because your using the wrong thing, or your skin feels irritated because it’s not used to products in general. Your living cells need time to adapt to new ingredients. Similar to a newborn transitioning to solid food for the 1st time. Or your pet transitioning from hard food to soft. The goal is to “feed your skin” the right ingredients to provide the essential vitamins your skin needs.

Using the right cleanser for your skin type is crucial.

Toning is the 2nd step in your skincare practice. An essential step that helps to insure your cleansing step was effective. Toning the skin will not only help to remove remaining dirt, dead cells and debris from this skin, but also restores the natural PH of the skin, if your cleanser is not PH balanced. Skin PH is essential to keeping your skin in a healthy balanced state. Hormonally imbalanced skin, leads to a host of skin issues. We’ll address healthy skin PH later. Back to toning..

Toning also is the 1st step after removing impurities, that introduces vitamins (otherwise known as antioxidants) into the skin, as well as hydration, to start replenishing moisture after restoring balance. Most toners have vitamins that help to shield the skin from environmental damage like smog, & second hand smoke. Damage we call “free radicals:” Well visit free radicals later…

Toning is a great “1st line of defense” after cleansing, but is also an easy way to constantly reintroduce vitamins & moisture into the skin Toner in a spray bottle should be used throughout the day, & is especially beneficial when your skin is exposed to harsher conditions like air travel, or extreme temperature changes and altitudes.

Exfoliation is the 3rd step in your “first aid” to skin health. There are 2 different types of exfoliation. Chemical & physical. These types of exfoliation come in different forms, offering many different options for exfoliation. The best type, and best way to exfoliate depends on both your skin type & condition.

Check back with our blog for more details on basic steps to come…